Word: mayors
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Even as the last of some 250 billion gallons of fetid floodwater were finally being pumped out of New Orleans, the rising tide of debate over the city's upright but erratic mayor showed no signs of abating. "We shouldn't have to choose between corruption and incompetence on something this important," says veteran political consultant C.B. Forgotston, once a Nagin backer. "If Nagin remains in charge, the city simply will never get rebuilt." The debate over his performance is hardly academic. In February, Nagin faces a re-election contest that will help determine the trajectory of New Orleans' revival...
...mayor must navigate that tricky terrain in the midst of a new scandal in New Orleans' notoriously corrupt and ineffectual police department. It was bad enough that some officers were accused of deserting their posts and looting Cadillacs during Katrina, but now two officers stand accused of beating a retired African-American schoolteacher who they claim was drunk and resisting arrest (he denies it) in the reopened French Quarter--a brutal attack that was caught on video and left Nagin's welcome mat looking all the more tattered. The officers have pleaded not guilty to charges of battery. Nagin...
Ironically, a large part of the former communications executive's current problems may well be how he communicates--or doesn't. The CEO mayor relies almost exclusively on an ultratight circle of confidants brought in from the halls of business, especially McDonald's franchise baron and fellow millionaire friend David White. State and federal officials say privately that Nagin's insular and politically inexperienced staff has hurt him when it comes to the kind of public relations and coalition building he'll need from here on out. "This administration tends to dismiss too many people, especially career political people," says...
...more criticism than God knows who," as if "you all think I'm crazy." After encouraging residents to return to New Orleans despite federal warnings that conditions weren't yet safe, Nagin groused that the Katrina recovery director, Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen, was acting like the "federal mayor of New Orleans." It won't be so easy for the mayor to win back the Big Easy's confidence. When he encouraged evacuees last week at a number of shelters across Louisiana to "come back and work" in New Orleans, many angry former residents retorted that they were tired...
...supposed to be 200 New Orleans evacuees returning home but turned out to be mostly down-and-out residents of other cities like Mobile, Ala., and Memphis, Tenn., looking for reconstruction jobs. The event could have been an embarrassing rebuke of Nagin's come-home rallying efforts, but the mayor turned it around by welcoming the new arrivals as a "test case" for the city's job opportunities...